'" 29 þ @ "Look, dear, I only go to the races 'In the hope of bringing home a little something extra for you and the children." frIendship-his mind skidding, his tongue wagging-and Claytqn's re- sponse an embarrassing and degrading disproportion existed. Until now it had seemed foolIshly natural for Clayton to offer him a job. Reportedly he had asked Bim Black- wood to jump Knopf for a publicity job at Carson Chemical. Bim had said, without seeing anything funny in the word, that Clayton had lots of "power" at C arson "In just three years, he's near the top. He's a killer. Really." Clavton hadn't had to go into the Army. Troubled knees, or something. That was the thing about poor chil- dren: they acquire disabilities which give them the edge in later life. It's cruel to expect a man without a handicap to go far. . . Fred's position was not desperate. An honorable office in The Firm (for F a- ther was of the newest school, which sees no harm in playing favorites) was not, as Father had said, with his arch way of trotting out clichés as if they were moderately obscure literary quota- tions, "the fate worse than death." Fur- thermore-he was a great man for fur- thermores-anyone who imagined that the publicity arm of Carson Chemical was an ivory tower compared to Braur, Chappell & Platt was livIng In a fool's paradise. Yet vIewed allegorically the differ- ence seemed great. SomethIng about all this, perhaps the chaste spring greenery of the Park visible through the win- dows, suggested one of those crossroads in "The Faerie Queene." Besides, he had been very kind to Clayton-gotten him onto the Quaff, really. Sans Quaff, where would Clay- ton be ? Not that Clayton need consider any of this. Hell, It wasn't as if Fred were asking for something; he was of- fering something. He pushed back the chair a few feet, so a fun view of himself was available in the mirror. a tall youth seated on a chair rooted, with a droll unsuspecting stability, on an inclined plane of car- pet. Fred's face was slightly lopsided; his eyebrows didn't match, and his lower lip pulled toward the left. He had come not to notice it in the mir- ror, and when shown a photograph of himself, where the imbalance he had accustomed himself to was reversed, he experienced the shame and indig-